If you've ever wanted to know how to roast a peacock or sauté a tortoise, serve up a mythical beast (half pig and half cockerel) or cure the plague with a simple infusion, impress your guests with exploding ships and castles or pies containing live frogs and birds, whip up a batch of "Whore's Farts" or make mock coffee from asparagus, then this is the book you need. It collects some of the most quaint, bizarre, revolting, and downright absurd recipes ever published, from fantastical ones written in the Middle Ages to frugal ones intended to help wartime cookbooks "make do" on the home front. Presented chronologically, with period illustrations of kitchens, ingredients, dishes, and feasts, the recipes can of course be re-created (should you be feeling especially omnivorous), but simply reading them offers fascinating insights into the cultural and economic aspects of their various eras.